Jurgen Appelo

In modern organizations managers are expected to be “servant leaders” and “systems thinkers”, but nobody explains exactly how to do this. Managers, and everyone else, need to know “how” because most organizational problems are management problems. Management is too important to leave to the managers!

He is the author of the book Management 3.0, which describes the role of the manager in agile organizations. And he wrote the little book How to Change the World, which describes a supermodel for change management.

In May 2014, Inc. Magazine named him one of the “Top 50 Leadership and Management Experts” .

Helen Souness

Etsy is a marketplace where people around the world connect to buy and sell unique goods. Their mission is to re-imagine commerce in ways that build a more fulfilling and lasting world. Since its launch in 2005, Etsy has grown to more than 40 million members, 25 million listings and 1 million shops in nearly 200 countries.

She joined Etsy from digital marketplace community Envato, where she was general manager. In her new role she will be responsible for increasing Etsy’s footprint for buyers and sellers across both markets.

Helen is also a former marketing director for jobs website Seek.com.au.

Angela Ferguson

Angela Ferguson is the Managing Director of futurespace. As a qualified designer, writer and speaker Angela specialises in the application of design thinking to a client’s workplace brief.

For more than two decades Angela has worked with key global and local businesses to drive innovative design solutions and develop more responsive accommodation results. Her experience is diverse across sectors and includes significant work for both private enterprise and not-for-profit organisations.

Some of her most recognizable clients include Google, Qantas, Fortescue Metals Group, American Express and The Benevolent Society.

In 2012 Angela was presented with the CBRE Businesswoman of the Year Award for her holistic approach to the management of futurespace. She has also been an advocate for women in construction through her influential role as NSW President of NAWIC in 2013.

Angela is a passionate advocate for the difference that intelligent design can make on everyday working, learning and living spaces. She blogs about this at thefutureofspace.com.au

Shawn Callahan

Shawn is the Founding Director of Anecdote Pty Ltd. In his eclectic career Shawn has been a geographer and archaeologist, database designer and geographic information management company director.

In the late 1990s, his career took a surprising twist when he stumbled across the incredible natural power of stories. He went on to senior roles in IBM Centre for Organisational Complexity where he was part of pioneering work in using narrative approaches to tackle complex issues.

He formed Anecdote in 2004 with the purpose of helping restore humanity to organisations and a practical focus in helping organisations and leaders tap into the power of stories. In the past 10 years Sean has helped leaders all over the globe convert their strategies into strategic stories and communicate those strategies more effectively.

Dr Jason Fox

Dr Jason Fox is a motivation strategy & design expert who shows forward thinking leaders how to influence work culture, drive progress and build for the future of work.

Jason’s work has seen him speak in many countries and work on motivation strategy and change leadership with some of the most senior executives of multinational companies. He has helped savvy leaders implement no-tech gameful design to shift the motivational dynamics of teams and get projects moving, andnd he has mentored some of the brightest emerging thought leaders on the planet.

Jason’s clients include the likes of Fortune 50 companies like PepsiCo and other multinationals like SAP, Toyota and Gartner, through to companies like Optus, Telstra, Sydney Water, AMP and the International Institute for Research.

Jason is the author of “The Game Changer” published by Wiley, that unpacks the science of motivation, gamification and agile management to drive change within organisations, teams and work.

When not liberating the world from poorly designed processes and work, Jason enjoys partaking in extreme sports like reading, coffee snobbery and fruit ninja.

Steve Sammartino

Steve is a Melbourne business person who has worked at Director level in the the world’s biggest advertising agency and the world’s biggest Consumer Goods Company, as well as startups he’s founded and sold.

Steve is the Director at Australia’s first new car company in over 30 years www.tomcar.com.au. His blog also has over 30,000 readers a month (Startup Blog) and is the biggest in its category. It’s been in Australia’s top 10 the past 5 years.

He’s done a lot of crazy projects including putting a Lego space shuttle into actual earth orbit, and he helped create a full sized car with an engine made of Lego, with an air powered engine — it was crowd funded via Twitter.

Steve’s book, The Great Fragmentation: And Why the Future of All Business is Small, is released by Wiley in July. It examines the digital revolution and what it means for business and he will be speaking about this at Dare Festival.

James Law

James has worked at some of Australia’s leading online business such as seek.com.au, realestate.com.au and betfair.com.au. He is now plying his trade at Envato where he tries to support the brilliant creative minds that pull together one of the leading digital marketplaces in the world!

His people philosophy is based on finding fantastic people, helping teams work together better and then getting out of the way!

Kerri Rusnak

Kerri is passionate about leadership, sustainable team performance and culture – her core interest in technology and the IT industry is focused on the ways in which it ultimately “creates meaning.

‘ To her, IT and especially Agile, provide the opportunity to work with exceptionally smart and enlightened people, to manage a constantly evolving and dynamic environment, to innovate and ultimately, to see the world change as a result of it all.

Her career has progressed from business analysis to iteration management and then as a Head of Technology at the REA Group. She has recently been assigned as the Head of IT Operations -International.

Luke Giuliani

Luke is an entrepreneur who has started numerous projects and businesses across several industries. These include Squareweave, a web company making the world better with technology; Grace, a cafe in Fitzroy; OurSay, a social enterprise connecting citizens to decision makers; and The Fitzroy Academy of Getting Shit Done, a project to teach people how to work on ideas that don’t even exist yet.

Passionate about using technology to make the world better, Luke particularly enjoys working with social enterprises and startups. He has extensive experience in web and mobile technology, but has also done strategic consulting and sits on several boards. Luke helps projects by making complicated matters simple and finding ways for people to solve problems with technology.

Luke lives in Fitzroy with his fiancé, Lucy. In his spare time, he enjoys good coffee, exhausting games of squash, long rides on his motorbike and bad sci-fi.

Nigel Dalton

Nigel is a veteran agile evangelist with over 14 years of experience applying agile principles to IT and product development in the USA, Australia and NZ.

Nigel was also the co-founder of Luna Tractor, an Australian business consultancy taking agile, lean and systems thinking beyond software development to all areas of business and organisations. Luna Tractor leveraged the experience gained in the transformation of Lonely Planet between 2007 and 2011, with over 20 teams running variants of agile, kanban and lean methods to support their aim to make amazing guides in all formats for customers.

At REA-Group Nigel takes a strong interest in broad application of lean, agile and systems thinking approaches around the workplace.

His greatest career regret is having once tried to apply agile techniques to a rock and roll band. The result was not pretty.

Yvonne Adele

Yvonne Adele is a Microsoft graduate with a couple of decades of corporate experience. She created the Ms Megabyte brand/persona in the mid 90′s. During her 10 year stint as Ms Megabyte, Yvonne assisted thousands of Australian’s to embrace their technology and travelled around the country and overseas as IT Reporter for the Today Show and enjoyed a long residency as columnist for Woman’s Day and Women’s Weekly. During this time, Yvonne accepted requests to speak at conferences and found it to be her absolute passion.

Yvonne has been the National Vice President of the National Speakers Association of Australia and twice Vic State President during which time she achieved the designation of CSP (Certified Speaking Professional), an accreditation held by only 100 speakers in Australia.

Lynne Cazaly

Lynne Cazaly is a speaker, facilitator, trainer & mentor, and an expert in leading change, critical thinking and applying innovation. She is the author of “Visual Mojo: How to capture thinking, convey information and collaborate using visuals” and “Create Change: How to apply innovation in an era of uncertainty”.